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By GCN Staff

Data.gov model going global

The managers of the Data.gov are making available an open-source version of the open data portal that would enable governments around the world to stand up similar information transparency gateways.

The Data.gov team has been working with the National Informatics Centre of the government of India to develop the Open Government Platform (OGPL), an open-source back end that could be adapted by other countries.

In addition to India, the governments of Canada and Ghana have plans to use the software to improve their open government programs in 2013.

Canada originally launched the Open Data Portal as a pilot project in March 2011. Since then, around 273,000 datasets from 21 participating agencies have been uploaded to the portal, generating about one million user sessions.

In a recent Web presentation, Data.gov evangelist Jeanne Holm said the team was “getting close to releasing the first complete package of OGPL,” and solicited the open-source community for “ideas, feedback and commits before we proceed.

“As with any open-source capability, the code is only as strong as the community,” said Holm, who is also the chief knowledge officer of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab. “I appreciate those of you who have downloaded the code, helped to test it, and provided feedback.”

The OGPL code has also been updated and is available with documentation on Github, she said.

The move to develop an open-source open data platform has been at least a year in the making. In December 2011, federal CIO Steven Van Roekel announced the initiative, pledging to help make governments around the world more transparent by producing “Data.gov-in-a-box,” an open-source version of the U.S. Data.gov and India’s India.gov.in portals.